Babcock is happy when Bertuzzi skates hard, holds onto the puck and is engaged physically.

That is how Bertuzzi has played the last two games. And he is being rewarded for it.

Bertuzzi's second consecutive two-goal game Sunday afternoon propelled the Red Wings to a 4-2 victory over Boston at Joe Louis Arena, as they completed a home-and-home sweep of the Bruins.

"When he's skating, when he's competing, when he's being strong on the puck, it's real hard to get it off him," Babcock said of Bertuzzi. "Sometimes when he gets carried away making skill plays vs. just being a big man, he's not as good. When he's playing like he is right now he's fantastic."

Regardless of what else he is doing, Bertuzzi still feels the need to score. He had just one goal and three assists in 14 games prior to Friday's 6-1 win in Boston. This outburst has been a relief.

"I just seemed to be in the right spots," Bertuzzi said. "I'm skating better. I feel I got my legs back. I wasn't playing well there for a little while. It's nice to finally get some speed, hold onto the puck and make plays.

"I've always been kind of a streaky scorer, but for some reason the past handful of years, it goes the other way a little longer than I like."

Bertuzzi isn't being fancy, he's putting the puck on the net. He tied the game 1-1 at 6:09 of the first period by picking off a bad pass by Brad Marchand in front of the Bruins net and flipping the puck past Tim Thomas. He wrapped up the scoring at 13:55 of the third period, converting a pass from Johan Franzen during a two-on-one break initiated by their linemate, Henrik Zetterberg.

"They make it pretty easy," Bertuzzi said of his linemates. "Z's a good guy to talk to, kind of helps you out. I've benefited from that."

Babcock said he's not sure how much longer he'll keep that line intact, but Bertuzzi and Franzen's size can make it a difficult unit to match up against.

"I think Bert skated unbelievable tonight, and that's without the goals," Babcock said. "He played good without the puck, he was physical. (Nathan) Horton and (Milan) Lucic are huge men, but when you're playing against Mule and Bert, those are big men, too, so that kind of nullifies it a bit, and I thought they did a great job."

Babcock was happy with the whole team, which, after a rough stretch, has responded with two strong performances against one of the top defensive clubs in the NHL.

Pavel Datsyuk and Kris Draper also scored for the Red Wings against Thomas, the Flint native who could be in line to win his second Vezina Trophy in three years as the league's top goaltender.

Datsyuk tied it at 2-2 at 3:54 of the second period, knocking in the rebound of a shot by Brian Rafalski. Draper gave his team the lead for good at 12:44, capping a nice four-way passing play by breaking in alone on Thomas to net his sixth goal. Nicklas Lidstrom started the play with an outlet pass to Darren Helm, who moved the puck to Patrick Eaves, who slipped a pass through traffic to Draper.

The Red Wings battled back after Tyler Seguin (1:29) and Marchand (12:17, on the power play) scored to give the Bruins a 2-1 lead after the first period.

Jimmy Howard made 23 saves to raise his record to 28-10-3.

"We wanted to build off the other night and that's exactly what we did," Howard said. "We came out and continued to play great defensively. ... We did a great job blocking shots, pushing them to the outside. Really made my life pretty easy."

After being booed in two of their last three home games, losses to Nashville and Columbus, the Red Wings gave fans much to cheer about.

"It bothered a lot of us coming off the ice, not the boos, but the fact we gave them a reason to boo us," Draper said. "We take a lot of pride in our work ethic, how we compete, and we weren't doing it and the fans let us know."